


A Very Merry Halloween

by starspangledsprocket



Series: Me, You and Peter, Too [7]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Family Bonding, Halloween, M/M, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-29 00:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5110271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starspangledsprocket/pseuds/starspangledsprocket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony and Peter spend some quality time together, Peter learns a very important Halloween skill, and Steve is very much in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Merry Halloween

"I can’t _decide_ ,” Peter whined, stomping up and down the aisle in a way that immediately reminded Tony of Steve. “There’s too many, Daddy!”

“Well,” Tony hummed in reply, “you originally wanted to be a ghost, right? Why don’t we go back to your original choice -”

“But I like this one, as well,” Peter huffed with his bottom lip sticking out, tugging on a Buzz Lightyear costume hung up above him. “And I like the Papa one, too. But then there’s the clown one –“

“I’m vetoing the clown one,” Tony told him firmly, because he couldn’t think of anything worse than a small person running around in flaky clown make-up in the dark. He shuddered just thinking about it.

They had the same problem with Peter every year. Halloween was his favourite holiday, and, being Steve’s son, he always went overly melodramatic for the occasion and wanted the best _everything_. That included, as Tony had found out this year, his choice in costume. Usually Steve took Peter out for his costume and the decorations, but this year he’d been called away with Natasha on a covert mission for a few days, leaving Tony to get the squirt and the tower ready for their annual Halloween party. 

It… had been a bit of a nightmare, frankly. Peter was very particular about what he did and didn’t want.

“What about this werewolf one?” Tony suggested, pulling it off one of the higher rails for Peter to see.

“Went as a werewolf last year,” Peter shook his head. “Can’t do the same thing two years in a row, Daddy!”

“How silly of me,” Tony replied as he put the costume back, wondering idly when he started taking orders from his eight-year-old.

“I want…” Peter hummed to himself, wandering backwards and forwards amongst the costumes. “I wanna be a robot, Daddy.”

_Success_. Quickly latching onto a solid idea, Tony nodded his head encouragingly and replied, “That’s great! I can make you an Iron Man suit –“

“No, Daddy,” Peter shook his head vehemently, and Tony despaired. “Don’t wanna be Iron Man. I wanna be a proper robot.”

And Tony would have argued with the kid, only Iron Man actually _wasn’t_ a robot, so technically he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, not Peter. Didn’t mean the idea of his son not wanting to dress as him for Halloween hurt any less, but he was pretty sure he could get over it.

“Okay,” he nodded, thoughtful. “Well, what kind of robot do you want to be, squirt? Are we talking Wall-E, or are we talking Prometheus? Interstellar or Rossum’s Universal Robots?”

Peter’s face scrunched up in confusion. “I don’t know what most of that is.”

“Well,” Tony hummed, “would you rather be a robot who looks like a human, or one that looks a little boxier?”

Peter hummed, obviously thinking hard, and then nodded his head. “Like Wall-E.”

“Great,” Tony grinned, because he could work with that. “Okay, we’re gonna have to go DIY on this one, kid; is that okay? We’ve got some boxes at home that could work really well, but we’re gonna have to pick up some paints and glue. Sound good?”

“Yeah!” Peter squealed, throwing his arms up in the air excitedly. “Yes, Daddy!”

Rolling his eyes, Tony held his hand out and gestured for Peter to take it. “Come on, then, squirt. Your Papa wants us to pick up some candy and decorations first, then we’ll get the paints and glue and head home.”

\--- 

All in all, Tony was actually really proud of his efforts on Peter’s costume. It wasn’t perfect, because cardboard was _stupid_ , but he didn’t want the kid to have to cart around a costume made of wood or whatever else all night, so they’d had to make do.

“Do a twirl, Peter Pan,” he called, and then rolled his eyes. “Damn, kid, we should have dressed you as Peter Pan.”

“Too late!” Peter replied excitedly, spinning on the spot.

He was basically dressed in a TV box. Tony had cut off the flaps so Peter could wriggle his little body through it, and had then attached two strips of material to either side of the top to hold the box in place over Peter’s shoulders. Together, they’d cut two holes in the sides for Peter’s arms, and had then repurposed some toilet paper tubes to make arms and claws. It had taken a few moments to think, but Tony had then gone back to the cut off box flaps and had reshaped them into caterpillar tracks to stick onto the sides of the main box.

A few hours and a lot of paint later, the whole thing had been given a single coat of paint and had dried nicely. Peter, too excited to wait for a second coat to go on, had pulled the costume on, and was now refusing to take it off.

Tony couldn’t say he really minded.

“We still need to find some more cardboard to make your eyes,” Tony hummed, still very much in build mode. “You want them to go on top of your head like a hat, or over your eyes like a mask?”

“Um…” Peter wasn’t really listening to him, too busy moving around the communal lounge excitedly to care. “What?”

“Peter, honey, I’m glad you like it,” Tony rolled his eyes, “but could you stop trying to pick up candy with your claw for two minutes and come talk to me properly?”

With an exaggerated sigh, as though the effort troubled him terribly, Peter dropped a bag of candy back into one of the many buckets Tony had dumped it into and wandered back over to him.

“Yes?” he asked innocently, and Tony found himself rolling his eyes again.

“It’s like looking at a carbon copy of your Pops,” he shook his head, and stuck his tongue out when Peter stuck his out first. “Right, okay, seriously – you need some eyes to complete your look. Do you want them on top of your head or around your eyes?”

“’Round my eyes,” Peter decided quickly.

“That’s literally all I wanted to know. See how easy that was?” Tony grinned, and Peter just sighed at him, as though the kid thought he was terribly hard done to. “Do you want to help, or do you want to keep playing in your costume?”

“Um… both,” Peter pouted.

“Nope, nuh-uh,” Tony shook his head, already grabbing another couple of toilet roll tubes from the coffee table. “Can’t do both, kid. There’s no way I’m letting silver paint near that thing now it’s finally dried.”

“Ugh, _fine_ ,” Peter sighed, dragging the syllables out as far as he could. Reluctantly, he started to shimmy out of his costume.

“Once more with feeling, why don’t you?” Tony replied, and snorted when Peter threw a couch cushion at him. “That wasn’t very nice after I’ve spent all afternoon on your costume, was it?”

“You joke too much,” Peter huffed, though he shuffled forwards all the same.

“I do _not_ ,” Tony replied indignantly, setting himself down on his butt in front of the coffee table. Once Peter was close enough, he unceremoniously tugged him down onto his lap, and grinned when the kid squeaked in surprise. “You, my son, are getting more and more highly strung as you get older. Give it a few years and you’re gonna be picking fights with kids twice your size just like Pops used to, huh?”

“What’s… what’s highly strung mean?” Peter asked, settling easily against Tony’s chest.

“It means,” Tony replied, hands busy with glue and cardboard as he dropped a kiss onto the top of Peter’s head, “that little things wind you up. Make you mad.”

“Oh,” Peter murmured quietly. “I don’t mean to get mad –“

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Tony backtracked quickly, unable to stand the way Peter’s bottom lip was starting to stick out. “You’re a passionate person, and that’s never a bad thing. We’ve just gotta teach you how to tell when something is or isn’t worth getting mad about, otherwise you’ll end up like the Hulk, huh?”

He jostled Peter gently in his arms and got a giggle for his trouble, so he counted it as a win and decided not to press the matter any further. Tony would be lying if he said that some of the things that seemed to irritate Peter didn’t worry him, especially with them having had such a turbulent start with him and all the psychological damage that could have potentially been done, but he knew that Peter was a good kid. Definitely Steve’s son, but a good kid, and seemed to be growing into his own skin with each passing minute, these days. He was miles apart from the quiet, terrified toddler Steve had rescued from that fire five years ago.

He was their son.

“Okay, you wanna mix up some grey paint?” Tony asked, still fiddling with the cardboard and glue. “Do you remember what colours make grey?”

“Yep, I can do it!” Peter replied happily enough, and they soon lapsed into a companionable silence while they worked.

\---

Steve and Natasha arrived back from their mission Halloween morning, both absolutely reeking of sewage (Tony didn’t even want to know what the hell they had been doing) and exhausted, but safe and well.

“Papa,” Peter insisted while Steve was busy simultaneously towelling his hair dry and spotting Tony’s step ladder as he pinned decorations to the wall. “Papa, you’re not looking –“

“Just a second, honey,” Steve replied with a patience that Tony honestly couldn’t fathom.

Tony couldn’t see Peter, as he was facing the wall, but he heard him whine just fine, and rolled his eyes. The kid always got a little clingy after either he or Steve had been away for a while – probably some latent hangover from his parents’, aunt, and uncle’s deaths as a baby.

“We could have saved all this if you’d let me hire someone to decorate,” Tony hummed, tacking the last line of spooky flags onto the wall. He turned and almost snorted with laughter when he spotted Peter crouching down on the floor in his costume, head tucked into the main body, and cardboard eyes resting on top like a real robot. “Although I don’t think I could ever begrudge setting eyes on that.”

Steve pulled the towel away from his face and looked up, huffing out a laugh as he, too, spotted Peter. “You’re going as Wall-E for Halloween this year, then, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” came Peter’s muffled reply, before his head popped back up and he got precariously back to his feet, grinning happily. “Daddy helped me.”

“Daddy did all the work,” Tony mumbled under his breath as he passed Steve to grab a bag of candy. Steve caught his wrist before he could get too far away, however, and reeled him in for a kiss.

“Adorable,” Steve murmured as they pulled away again, and then, to Peter, asked, “Did you say thank you to Daddy for helping you, Pete?”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Peter parroted back, train of thought already shifted onto the unopened bags of candy that Tony had drawn attention to. “Can I have some candy?”

“You’re welcome, son of mine,” Tony replied. He let go of Steve and walked over to the coffee table, dropping a kiss onto the top of Peter’s head. “And you can have one piece of candy, okay? We’re ordering pizza in a half hour to celebrate Papa coming home, so don’t fill up.”

Without further ado, he tore a bag open and offered it to Peter, who reached in and pulled out a bite-size candy bar with a big grin on his face. Then, while Peter toddled off to eat in peace, Tony poured the rest of the bag into a plastic pumpkin and reached for another bag to do the same.

“When did you get so domestic?” Steve hummed, quickly wrapping his arms around Tony’s waist from behind before he could jump.

Tony scoffed, was about to reply, but then he paused. He _had_ been kinda domestic over the past few years. But that wasn’t a bad thing, right? Sure, he tended to be the one who stayed at home with Peter while Steve went out on missions, but that was just because Tony still had ties to his company, too. He was the one who normally got Peter washed and dressed for school, sure, but Steve always cooked for them. Steve did bedtime stories better than Tony – Peter told him so every time it was his turn –

“Stop freaking out,” Steve murmured against his ear. “It’s not a bad thing. We’ve both just grown into it, is all, and it’s nice to sit back every once in a while and observe.”

“I guess I do like watching you baking cookies or colouring with him,” Tony mumbled, turning in Steve’s arms to face him.

“Exactly,” Steve nodded with a soft smile. “Sometimes it just catches me by surprise, is all. You’ve come such a long way since when we first met.”

“You, too,” Tony hummed in agreement, and then leaned up for a kiss. “Okay, fine, I like being a domestic goddess.”

Steve grinned goofily at him. “And I like you.”

“Jesus, Steve, we’re not in the third grade,” Tony snorted, batting at Steve’s arm to push him away fondly. “Now go take a nap before the pizza gets here. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

\---

 The party was going swimmingly, if Tony did say so himself. Though, honestly, he couldn’t remember a party he had thrown that hadn’t been anything other than a complete success. His parties these days tended to have a lot less coke and hookers and a lot more family friendly activities, of course, but the sentiment was still there.

“Missa Stark?” called a tiny girl from somewhere around his ankle, tugging insistently at his vampire cape to gain his attention over the music. “Missa Stark, Jimmy’s no’ playin’ apple bobbin’ wight.”

“He’s not?” Tony replied, glancing over people’s heads to try and get a peek at the apple bobbing station. He couldn’t really see. “What’s Jimmy doing, kiddo?”

“Cheatin’,” the little girl replied, tugging absentmindedly at her tutu. Tony was pretty sure belonged to one of his board members. “He’s usin’ his hands.”

“That is cheating,” Tony agreed, bending down to her level. “Tell you what, cutie pie – you go over there and tell Jimmy to knock it off, unless he wants me to go get Iron Man –“

“Tony,” Steve laughed from behind him, and Tony threw a grin over his shoulder. “Don’t put ideas in their heads. You know full well they all want Iron Man to make a visit anyway.”

Tony sighed exaggeratedly, and the little girl giggled. “My boyfriend’s no fun, huh?”

“No.”

“I agree,” Tony nodded. “All right, sweetie. You go back over there and have fun, okay? If Jimmy starts cheating again, send him over here to me.”

“’Kay,” the little girl nodded seriously. “Fanks.”

“No problem,” Tony nodded, climbing back to his feet again. He patted the girl gently on the head. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

When he turned back to Steve and the others, Steve was giving him that stupid, goofy grin that still, even after nearly six years, made him feel warm and fluttery inside. Even in his Frankenstein make-up, he was gorgeous. Stupid, gorgeous Steve.

“Not a word,” he mumbled, though he allowed Steve to wrap an arm around him as he rejoined their group.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Steve insisted, pulling Tony in against his side so he could nuzzle the side of his head gently. “I was just gonna ask you to marry me.”

Tony choked on the sip of drink he had just brought to his lips. Spluttering and leaning away from Steve to get a look at his face, he let out a gurgling noise that was actually supposed to be… well, he didn’t know what he was trying to say.

“You called me your boyfriend,” Steve continued earnestly, “and I love being your boyfriend, but… I want to be your husband, Tony. It’s been five years – neither of us is going anywhere, so –“

“Papa!” came Peter’s agonised cry from nowhere, and Tony had spun on the spot before he’d even really thought about it. “Daddy!” 

Peter appeared from between people’s legs, little face scrunched up in misery as tears ran down his face. Without thinking about it, and sensing Steve doing the same behind him, Tony crouched down again to Peter’s level.

“What is it, baby?” Steve asked worriedly, accepting Peter awkwardly into his arms. “Careful of your costume –“

“Jimmy ruined it!” Peter sobbed, and Tony felt a protective growl rising in his throat; who the _fuck_ was this Jimmy kid? “He pulled my tracks off an’ took my eye hat and put ‘em in the water, Papa.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Tony hissed, surging to his feet, though Steve snatched at his cape and pulled him back before he could get too far. “Steve, we spent _hours_ on that costume – that was quality bonding time between me and my son –“

“He’s a child, Tony,” Steve shook his head, and then turned to wipe Peter’s tears away with his thumbs gently. “A bully, sure, but a child. Do not go over there and threaten him.”

“You’re one to talk, Captain Back-Alley Fights,” Tony grumbled, though he didn’t move any further away. Instead, he gestured for Peter to come to him. “C’mere, baby. Show me which one Jimmy is.” 

“Tony –“

But Tony waved Steve away and pulled Peter into his side. After a moment, a couple of people moved, creating a path between them and the apple bobbing station, and Peter pointed to a long faced, snotty looking kid of around nine or ten years old dressed like what looked like a miniature Donald Trump.

Tony grimaced. He knew exactly who that kid belonged to.

“He’s Baxter’s kid, that gross, racist board member I told you about,” Tony told Steve. “Remember, the one who kept touching Pepper’s butt?”

“Oh yeah,” Steve grimaced. “I don’t know why you don’t fire him.”

“Oh, believe me, he’s gone,” Tony snarled, and then, taking a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down for Peter’s sake. “Why don’t we give him a little severance package, huh?”

\---

“This is a terrible idea,” Steve warned him, though his threat didn’t really hold much weight. “You’re setting a terrible example for Peter –“

“Excuse you,” Tony huffed in reply, busy handing a roll of toilet paper to Peter, who seemed to have calmed down considerably. “The only lesson I’m teaching my son is to stand up to bullies.”

“This is property damage, Tony,” Steve told him seriously, though he didn’t complain when Tony handed him a carton of eggs.

“Please,” Tony scoffed. “Egging and teepeeing is practically expected on Halloween, Steve. Where’s your holiday spirit?”

Steve still looked mightily unimpressed, though he flipped the carton of eggs open all the same.

It hadn’t been difficult to find Baxter’s house. All employees’ places of residence were on company file, so all Tony had had to do was ask JARVIS. Once they’d gathered the information, they’d slipped out of the party to go to the store, where they’d grabbed as many rolls of toilet paper and cartons of eggs as they could carry, and had then headed over.

“All right, Peter,” Tony instructed with a grin. “Throw the paper as hard as you can, buddy. We wanna cover the whole house.”

“Like a house ghost?” Peter asked excitedly.

“Like a house ghost,” Tony confirmed, and then, without further ado, let his first roll of paper fly. With a naughty cackle, Peter followed suit, and Steve soon followed with his first egg.

After that, it was chaos.

By the time they were out of supplies, they were all out of breath with laughter, and the expensive town house looked a complete wreck. Taking a step back next to Steve while Peter continued to run around, searching for bits of paper they hadn’t thrown, Tony couldn’t help but grin.

“It’s a yes, by the way,” he panted, still out of breath, and grinned harder when Steve jerked beside him in shock.

“It –?“

“I want this for the rest of my life,” Tony hummed, nodding his head a little. “So sure, I’ll marry you.”

Steve’s grin was brighter than the moon lighting up the sky above them. “Happy Halloween, Tony.”

“Happy Halloween, honey,” Tony replied.


End file.
